Solomon ben Yehuda ibn Gabirol (Solomon ibn Gabirol) is one of the most famous of all jewish poet-philosophers and during his life in Islamic Spain in the 11th century: he was one of the best known of all jewish thinkers. Since his reputation as a great philosopher has long been pushed by the Zionist movement (as well as by jewish historians more generally viz. the claim that he was responsible for bringing neo-Platonic thought back to Europe as a Latinized and Christianized thinker named 'Avicebron' who was credited with the neo-Platonic work 'Fons Vitae'). I thought it appropriate to examine what we can be understand of Gabirol's proto-Zionist desire for a jewish state to be created in Palestine.
The best place to start is Gabirol's poems and to afford the reader a better opportunity to understand and judge my commentary I have elected to reproduce substantial segments of them. (1)
Lets begin with Gabirol's poem 'Open the Gate', where we read:
'Open the gate, my love,
Arise and open the gate,
For my soul is dismayed
And sorely afraid
And Hagar's brood mocks my estate.
The heart of the hand-maid's sons
Is hateful and haughty grown,
And all because of the cry
Of Ishmael piercing the sky,
Ascending and reaching the Throne.'
Now it begins simply enough with a characteristic heart-wrung paean for god to once again show the jews his favour and open the gate to their new future as the rulers of mankind (which is the end result foreseen by Judaism in any form).
However we then quickly move into a far more familiar vile vein with Gabirol naming Hagar's grandchildren (the Egyptian slave impregnated and sent away to fend for herself by Abraham, because his wife Sarah was jealous) by her son Ishmael (i.e., the Arabs in Judaism) as beings 'hateful and haughty' people who occupy the land of the jews and laugh at the latter in their misfortune (i.e., 'mocks my estate').
A similar message to 'Open the Gate' is delivered by another of Gabirol's poems called 'Six Years Were Decreed' whence we read:
'Six years were decreed for a slave to wait
When his freedom he sought at his master's hand,
But the years of my bondage lack term or date,
It is hard, O my Master, to understand.
Why, Sire, should a hand-maid's son bear sway,
And me with affliction and anguish task?
There comes no answer, however I pray,
In despite that each day for the reply I ask.
What word at the last will Thou say, my King?
And Thou finds no ransom, O Lord, take me!
Take me for Thy people as offering,
I will serve Thee for ever and never go free.'
As well as in his poem 'Ask Of Me', which relates:
'Hath these creatures had passed,
Sated with Judah's spoil,
Than the wild ass we feared
Out of midnight appeared
To trample and dwell on our soil.
Ishmael's offspring command
Back to his Arab land,
As his mother of old
To her mistress was told
To return and submit to her hand.'
Note that once again in both of these poems Gabirol styles the jews as not being free and subject to bondage, because the Arabs (i.e., the 'hand-maids sons' = Hagar's sons = Ishmael's sons) hold sway over them and are likened to materialistic vultures preying on the wealth of the jews ('sated with Judah's spoil'). Thus Gabirol prays louder than ever that Yahweh will fulfil his promise and help the jews establish the 'right' order of things with the descendants of slaves ruled by the descendants of princes rather than the other way around.
We can see confirmation of this idea of the reversal of position between non-jews (Arabs specifically, but it is a broader application as will be discussed in a separate article) and the jews in Gabirol's poem 'Invocation', where we find the following text:
'Root of our saviour,
The scion of Jesse,
Till when wilt thou linger,
Invisible, buried?
Bring forth a flower,
For winter is over!
Why should a slave rule,
The lineage of princes,
A hairy barbarian
Replace our young sovereign?'
The concept of the reversal of natural roles that is fundamental to Gabirol's thought on this issue is based on the simple assertion of jewish superiority over non-jews.
We can see that this is the case, because of the fact that Gabirol's assertion is based on lineage not on conversion/religious confession. If the lineage of princes is more important than what the prince does/thinks/believes then it necessarily follows that Gabirol is framing jewishness in the sense of caste (i.e., quasi-biologically) as opposed to religious confession.
Also worth noting is that Gabirol is dehumanizing non-jews and asserting they are sub-human by referring to them as being physically different (i.e., hairy = stupid/less refined and the references to non-jews as 'slaves' as well as the lineage element to his argument confirms the demonization as being that of master race/sub-human antagonism) and entreating god to send the jewish warrior messiah ('the scion of Jesse') to come and lead the jews to victory over the non-jews and form the new jewish priestly world government.
Further evidence of this can be found in Gabirol's poem 'The Redemption', which states as follows:
'The despoiled and dispersed Thou shall gather to Zion,
Restoring the slaves who were sold without fee,
And the priests to their ritual robes, while the scion
Of families ruling shall once more be free
To carol, high God, his thanksgiving to Thee.
To the heathen a banner to raise Thou will hasten,
Thou shall strengthen and gird up the loins that we trust,
And the suppliants whom Thy dispersal did chasten
Thou will raise as of yore from captivity's dust,
The breastplate of righteousness clothing the just.
My impudent foe seeks my life-faith to sever,
To my face he enquires how long yet will thou wait,
But I am afflicted, not cast off for ever,
For my God is the help of the low in estate,
Protecting the poor as He humbles the great.
His heritage shall to the exile be given,
And a strong hand the sick and the punished replace,
The abased and abandoned, by ever fang riven,
Shall their freshness renew by the patriarchs' grace
And the stranger be scorched like a tropical place.'
In other words Gabirol is imploring his god to once more allow the jews to take back Palestine, while at the same time 'scorching' the 'impudent foe' from the land the jews claim by divine right.
Notice how Gabirol's language in regard to the jews being 'chastened' and having been cast into slavery, but not yet redeemed by god to allow them to retake their rightful position in the world is but a slither away from modern pro-Zionist/philo-Semitic historical narratives, which stress the alleged great merits/contribution to civilization of the jews (effectively making them a tribe of supermen) and style their history as being a series of unjust 'tortures' and martyrdoms at the hands of the ungrateful and jealous gentiles.
This similarity between Gabirol's beliefs and modern Zionist historiography is made most explicit in Gabirol's poem 'For a Marriage' where we read:
'Restore the tortured People
To the friend of her youth divine,
And bring the two together
To the house of joy and wine.'
As well as in Gabirol's duologue 'God and Israel' in which we find the following stated:
'Israel:
How long, O my God, shall I await Thee in vain?
How long shall Thy people in exile remain?
Shall the sheep ever shorn never utter their pain
But dumbly through all go on waiting?'
[…]
'Israel:
How long till the turn of my fate shall draw near,
How long till ere the scaled and the closed be made clear,
And the palace of strangers a roof shall appear?
God:
Hope on for a shelter and refuge.
With healing shall yet thy entreaties be graced,
As when Caphtor was crushed shalt thou triumph re-taste,
And the flowers cast off shall re-bloom in the waste,
Hope on but a little space longer.
Israel:
My people of yore 'neath one people was drowned,
But from Egypt or Babel deliverance found,
But now we are hopelessly compassed around
By four birds of prey grim and speckled
They have eaten my flesh, yet to leave me are loath.'
In both of the quoted passages we can see that Gabirol suggests that the jews (= Israelites = Israel in Judaism) are just waiting to be redeemed by their god once they have paid the penance for their sins.
This Gabirol styles in 'For a Marriage' as being a form of 'torture' and then elaborates in 'God and Israel' with the image of the gentiles as being 'four birds of prey grim and speckled', which are just waiting to 'eat the flesh' of the jews (i.e., assimilate/convert/marry/kill the jewish people and in so doing tear away a chunk of the community of Israel), which are likewise themes that are the sine qua non of Zionist popular and academic historical discourse.
Gabirol is also clearly dehumanizing non-jews as by likening them to 'birds of prey' and portraying them as an inherently evil group of people whose sole purpose is to assault jews and jewishness by seek to destroy the jewish people by assimilation, conversion, intermarriage or violence. Had such been said by a non-jew about jews then it would be asserted to be 'anti-Semitism', but since it is the sentiment of a major jewish poet-philosopher about gentiles then it can only be regarded as a form of racist sentiment against non-jews (i.e., anti-Gentilism).
What is perhaps ironic in all this that Gabirol dreams that the very things he styles gentiles as wishing to do the jews: he advocates doing to gentiles. This is made clear in Gabirol's poem 'The Day of Judgment', where the following is stated:
'Set the Most High before thee, and know that every thought
And every hidden imagining are to Him not hidden.
Dread the day of His wrath, and the dreadful position
Wherein is help or refuge for no creature.
On the day He shall judge the peoples and destroy their beings
And wither all His adversaries as with the fiery blast of his nostrils
And decree the fate of all potentates, officers and rulers,
Nor pay regard to mighty princes,
And destroy tyrants and cut off the scornful,
The proud and presumptuous who rely on preciousness of their palanquin'
Gabirol here once again envisions a world ruled by the jews who have been redeemed in the eyes of their god and whom are to retake Palestine and then, in a form of Messianic Tikkun Olam ('Repairing the World'), destroy all the nations who have opposed them (i.e., the gentiles).
Mark how Gabirol refers to how god will judge and then exterminate ('destroy') the gentiles (the nations = the peoples) who he regards as opposed to him ('wither all His adversaries as with the fiery blast of his nostrils') with particular emphasis on wiping out the rulers of the gentiles ('destroy tyrants and cut off the scornful').
The logical result of such a scenario would be that the non-jews of the world would either be exterminated en toto in a fiery holocaust or have their leadership structures wiped out with the jews (as the priests of Yahweh) taking on their ascribed role in Judaism as the 'priestly nation' who have been 'chosen' by the creator of the universe to administer his temporal domain.
That Gabirol advocated the extermination of non-jews becomes even more obvious when we note his words concerning the nature of Yahweh in regard to revenge on those who have wronged the jews in part eighteen of 'The Royal Crown'.
To wit:
'And this is the scope of his greatness,
That he is like a terror-striking warrior
Whose shield of red gives him might,
And who stirs up wars,
And slaughter and destruction,
With men smitten of the sword
And consumed of flame,
Their sap burned to dryness;
And years of dearth,
And fiery burnings and thunders and hailstones
And piercings and withdrawings of the sword in consonance with them,
"For their feet run swiftly to commit evil and hasten to shed blood."'
Which is then qualified further in Gabirol's poem 'Establish Peace' as follows:
'All realms behold our driven seed,
Like wounded doves we fly their hate,
All nations hunt us and impede
And in the desert lie in wait.
Gripped as a bird within a net,
Ever pursued in deadly chase,
With harsh devices daily met,
Per chance our God will grant us grace.
How many periods are past,
And we in exile lingering,
By enemies encompassed fast,
Who jeer that now we have no King!
They plot and league in lying spite
God's truth with cunning to eclipse,
Our tongues, they say, shall give us might,
We own no master to our lips.
Shine forth, great God, in splendid flame,
Bare Thy great arm of ancient days,
Be jealous for Thy glorious name,
Not unto us, O Lord, the praise.
To dust the Arab kingdoms sweep,
The ravenous beasts who tear and bite,
Who rend our scattered sons as sheep,
Whose motto is to seize by might.
Our heritage they have possessed,
Exiled, devoured us at their will,
Consumed and wasted and oppressed
And machinate against us still.
So low our nation has been brought,
So many masters override,
A little more and it were naught,
Had not the Lord been on its side.
Beneath the feet of slaves we bend,
In pit and prison we are pressed,
The hunters at our necks impend,
We labour still and have no rest.
Where is that kindness from above
Of which Thy servitors have heard,
The boon of Thy peculiar love,
For which we have our fathers' word?
O glorious sovereign of the height,
Abase, destroy their topmost tower,
The final marvel bring to light,
Arise and save us, show Thy power.
Uplift the lowly from the mire,
And make our meditation sweet,
The lily gather from the brier,
And our salvation, Lord, complete.
With joy the lost and wounded bless,
Wipe from all eyes the tears that run,
Unveil the orb of righteousness,
For unto us is born a son.
O break the yoke, the slave release,
Rebuke the arrogant again,
And send Thy messenger of peace,
Whose feet are welcome as the rain.
Rejoice, my dear despised, the King
In all His beauty shall see,
And this the song that men shall sing
In Judah's land, our own and free
The prayer of the mark finds grace,
And God will hearken and forgive,
Tread down corruption, sin erase,
And in His light will let us live.
My song of penitence He ranks
As though an altar-sacrifice.
Healed of my sins I give Him thanks,
Who despite our deeds remits the price
Delight and peace from Thee we hail,
Thy hand Thy people's sin outscored
Drew over iniquity a veil
Nor gave wrongdoing its reward.
Perpetual ascend to Thee
Thy people's and Thy servant's cries,
O let us Thy compassion see,
And Thy salvation greet our eyes.'
Notice in the above excerpts that the god of the jews is styled as being thirsty for the blood of the gentiles and is rather too keen on destroying and slaughtering them at the first opportunity. When you combine that with the attacks on gentiles in 'Establish Peace' such calling the Arabs slaves who 'hate' their jewish masters and suggesting non-jews are congenital liars who have a great hatred of all jews so they make up vicious libels/slanders about them.
Then we get a situation where Gabirol is both dehumanizing non-jew and calling for their slaughter for living in the wrong place (i.e., Palestine) or just... being... well... not jewish.
We can see see this even when read such innocuous sounding verses (in 'Establish Peace') as:
'O break the yoke, the slave release,
Rebuke the arrogant again,
And send Thy messenger of peace,
Whose feet are welcome as the rain.'
What we need to do here is bear in mind the context in which Gabirol uttered this statement.
In other words the yoke of god is to be broken (a pun on the idea of the yoke of the Torah in Judaism) and the jews are to be released from the Diaspora (their 'slavery'), while those who are arrogant and have either doubted Yahweh's promise or have oppressed the jews are to be 'rebuked'. And since, as we have already seen, this 'rebuke' is stated to come in the form of wholesale or partial extermination in a fiery holocaust.
This is hardly the 'message of peace' that is to be brought by the messenger.
That messenger however is a euphemism for the jewish messiah who - in direct contrast to Christianity's conception of Jesus - is an all-conquering warrior who is to come to lead the jews to final victory over the gentiles and who will be welcomed as a relief to the drought of their military successes by the jews (i.e., 'whose feet are welcome as the rain').
Gabirol is even more specific on the fact that systematic violence against non-jews is not only permitted but a necessary act in his philosophic text 'The Improvement of Moral Qualities'. (2) Where he discusses hardheartness (i.e., mercilessness/ruthlessness) in the following terms:
'I do not find this quality among righteous or superior men. But it is (to be found) in him whose nature resembles that of a lion, for he is one who is never sated. These are the ones of whom it is said (Deut. 28:50), "A nation of fierce countenance." Upon my soul, this is a wholly detestable quality, whether (its measure be) great of small. It comes into being when the spirit of wrath prevails over a man. This quality is exercised for the purpose of wreaking vengeance upon enemies. There is no harm in making use of it in this manner, although the intelligent man ought not endeavor to be avenged upon his enemies. For this is not befitting. Thus saith the sage (Prov. 24:17), "Rejoice not when thy enemy falleth." To make use of it in order that one may do evil to his fellow-man, to kill him, or to lay hold of the possessions of one who has given no offence, is reprehensible.' (3)
The essence of what Gabirol is telling us here is that, in his view, mercilessness is generally an evil, because god is fundamentally merciful, but that mercilessness has its uses and that the intelligent man is very careful how they use such a tool.
In other words Gabirol believes that mercilessness (towards non-jews as that is the specific context of his remarks) can be a good tool for the jews to use, but only after having intelligently and deliberately weighed the pros and cons of such a course of action.
The specific situation that Gabirol foresees the use of such mercilessness towards non-jews is stated somewhat later in his comments on wrathfulness. To wit:
'Wrath is a reprehensible quality, but when employed to correct or to reprove,or because of indignation at the performance of transgressions, it becomes laudable. Therefore the thoroughly wise and ethically trained man mus abandon both extremes and set about the right mean.' (4)
Said in another way Gabirol sees those who have 'committed transgressions' as being the only valid targets of wrathfulness (and therefore mercilessness/ruthlessness) from the jews.
Now remind yourself how Gabirol describes gentiles (and Arabs most specifically).
Remember?
As evil people who jealously persecute the jewish people, who have stolen and occupied their land, spread lies about the jews with malice aforethought and who would like nothing better than to exterminate the jewish nation.
Can you think of any more grievous transgression against the 'chosen people' of the creator and ruler of the cosmos?
I can't.
What are the Israelis doing to the Palestinians (and non-jews more broadly) today?
Exactly what Solomon ibn Gabirol advocates.
I rest my case.
References
(1) I have used Israel Zangwill, 1944, 'Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol', 1st Edition, Jewish Publication Society of America: Philadelphia as my source for these.
(2) Stephen Wise, 1902, 'The Ethics of Solomon ibn Gabirol', 1st Edition, Columbia University Press: New York
(3) Ibid., 2:4
(4) Ibid., 4:1